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Stewart? Poitier? Scofield? De Niro? Day-Lewis? Our chief critic selects a victor from his nominees ? and reveals who you chose as your people?s champion Catch up on the full list of Peter?s nomineesThe best actor Academy award has always had a totemic fascination. Peter O?Toole was tortured throughout his career by getting nominated eight times without winning, and actually considered turning down a lifetime achievement Oscar in 2003 ? at the age of 70 ? on the grounds that he was ?still in the game and might win the lovely bugger outright?. (He never did, though was nominated for the last time in 2007.) Holding the Oscar in your hand is something that many actors daydream about. The first ever best actor winner, Emil Jannings, was the German silent movie actor later disgraced for his propaganda associations with the Nazi regime: when Allied troops entered Berlin in 1945, he is said to have stood in the rubble, holding up his statuette and piteously calling out: ?I have Oscar!? His successors have been considerably more respectable, providing performances that have thrilled and captivated movie audiences over decades. Here is my fantasy lineup of best actor nominees in my Oscar-of-Oscars ceremony. Continue reading...

Soderbergh?s iPhone-shot film boasts an excellent Claire Foy as a woman trapped in a psychiatric facility ? but it?s ridiculous in all the wrong ways Steven Soderbergh has ventured into the world of psychiatric grand guignol before, with his excellent 2013 thriller Side Effects. But this movie, from screenwriters Jonathan Bernstein and James Greer ? known for comedy ? is ultimately ridiculous in all the wrong ways. It?s a crazily broad, brash exploitation horror-thriller shot on an iPhone, with creeped-out distorted cinematography, menacingly low lighting, and pastiche midnight-movie design effects. The film has a ragbag of themes including stalking, mental illness and the private medical insurance racket; these competing ideas cancel each other out and aren?t scary.And yet it has to be said that before things escalate into anarchic silliness, Unsane does pack a punch. Claire Foy brings a fierce commitment to the role of Sawyer Valentini, a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown ? in fact, well over the verge. She has moved to a new city with a new identity to escape a stalker. Matt Damon has a cameo as the cop advising her on security: locks, bars, deleting her social media accounts etc. But she is a complete wreck ? unable to form friendships or relationships ? and to her hospital-based psychotherapist she one day ill-advisedly appears to confess to having suicidal thoughts. This therapist coolly asks her to sign a document, which she thinks is just committing her to more sessions. But suddenly big white-coated men lead her to a locked room. And in that secure facility, she becomes convinced that the attendant nurse is actually her stalker. Continue reading...

Glasser, known as the ?third Weinstein?, to file wrongful termination suit that claims he was ?scapegoated? by company?s boardDavid Glasser, the former executive of the Weinstein Company fired last week, is planning to file an $85m wrongful termination suit against the company claiming that he ?was scapegoated by the TWC board of directors?. Related: Weinstein Company fires chief operating officer David Glasser Continue reading...

Actor and activist who worked with charity for 20 years stepped down to ?send a message? after Haiti sexual misconduct scandalActor and activist Minnie Driver has said she stood down as an ambassador for Oxfam to ?send a clear message? to the charity?s bosses over sexual abuse, which ?they knew was going on and did nothing? about.Driver was speaking at an event in London in which she also elaborated on her experiences with Harvey Weinstein and her involvement in the #MeToo movement. Continue reading...

The actor criticized media outlets for ?ridiculous? comments about an outfit she wore during the press tour for her latest filmJennifer Lawrence has criticized ?sexist? media coverage of her fashion choices in a new Facebook post.The Oscar-winning actor, currently on a press tour for thriller Red Sparrow, responded to comments suggesting that the sleeveless Versace outfit worn during a photocall in London implied that she was being mistreated alongside her coat-wearing male co-stars. Continue reading...

A triptych-style protest inspired by the Oscar favourite Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is only the latest example of demonstrators taking inspiration from cultural landmarksThree billboards outside the Houses of Parliament (and other London locations) last week read: ?71 dead?, ?And still no arrests??, ?How come?? The 71 are the Grenfell fire victims and the group behind the boards was Justice 4 Grenfell. This week, following the shootings at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school, three billboards outside a Florida senator?s offices read: ?Slaughtered in school?, ?And still no gun control? and ?How come, Marco Rubio??This new adaptable protest meme comes, of course, from Oscar favourite Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, in which an outraged mother puts up three billboards after her daughter?s murder remains unsolved. Call it Three Billboarding, perhaps. The tendency of life to mimic art has become a staple of protests in recent years. It?s now almost impossible to tell the difference between a good riot and a particularly angry cosplay expo. Continue reading...

Son of Pulitzer winner Paul Zindel alleges Guillermo del Toro?s Oscar-nominated film ?exploited? his father?s 1969 playThe family of a Pulitzer-winning playwright has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Guillermo del Toro and Fox Searchlight alleging that the Oscar-nominated film The Shape of Water is a ?derivative? work that has ?glaring similarities? to a 1969 play. David Zindel, son of American playwright Paul Zindel, filed the complaint Wednesday alleging that Del Toro?s critically acclaimed film, which has more Oscar nominations than any other this year, has ?exploited? the play Let Me Hear You Whisper and should have credited and licensed his father?s work. Continue reading...

Ahead of the 2018 Academy Awards, Steve Rose makes a rousing case for the thrilling political drama in which Gary Oldman gives us the full Churchill In this movie year of seismic change, it is admittedly highly unlikely that the Academy will hand best picture to a film that begins in a roomful of posh, old white guys, but that doesn?t mean there isn?t a case to be made for Darkest Hour. And were that case not made (summons inner Churchill, orchestral music swells on the soundtrack), and made with steadfastness and resolve, then this inspirational motion picture would suffer a fate not unlike that of our desperate fighting forces stranded at Dunkirk had Operation Dynamo not been undertaken. And where would we be then? (Shouts of ?Hear, hear old chap!?, much waving of bills of parliament in the hands of besuited politicians, string section reaches crescendo).Darkest Hour might retell one of the most retold stories in British history, but make no mistake, it is very much a film of the 21st century, made with intelligence, craftsmanship and the occasional special effects-enhanced flourish, not to mention a knowledge of its own semi-fictional status. It is not the story of how Britain won the war, nor is it a biopic, or a veiled Brexit allegory. (What does the Academy care about that, anyway?) It is closer to a pacy political thriller ? a 1940s West Wing, if you will ? covering a relatively short period of time: May to June 1940, the first few weeks of Churchill?s premiership. Continue reading...

Luca Guadagnino?s gorgeous coming-of-age tale oozes nostalgic melancholy and avoids the cliches in many films about gay loveIs Hollywood really changing? Or is just going through poses, like a self-conscious teenager at an outdoor disco in 1980s Italy? If Call Me By Your Name wins best picture at this year?s Academy Awards, we?ll have our answer. Luca Guadagnino?s film tells the story of two young men falling in love, but it?s also an irresistible seduction in itself. One which began before the film?s official release, with a flirtatious clip of Armie Hammer dancing, and continues over the course of a long Italian summer. Like young grad student Oliver (Hammer) and Elio (Timothée Chalamet), the 17-year-old son of his professor-host, we contentedly while away the film?s running time, discussing art and politics in whichever European language feels right, going for long bike rides, taking dips in the nearby lake, and dining outdoors under the peach trees; all of it depicted with languid sensuality by Guadagnino?s lens. Continue reading...

In the first of a series ahead of the 2018 Oscars, Peter Bradshaw champions Jordan Peele?s brilliantly scary satireThe nomination of Jordan Peele?s Get Out for best picture, a category that sadly often only rewards middlebrow-prestigious classiness, shouldn?t blind us to the fact that it is a brilliant scary movie: a horror suspense-thriller with hilarious moments. This is a cracking genre entertainment in the style of Ira Levin, and its piercingly relevant political satire ? the basis on which it has been admitted to the 2018 Oscar club ? needn?t deflect the impact of its sheer enjoyability. There are some great films on this year?s best picture list, but Get Out is the most purely subversive and raucously entertaining. It?s a film to make you wonder how or why John Carpenter?s Halloween never got a nomination. A nasty ambiguity dangles silently from the title. Get Out ? you?re not welcome here? Or Get Out ? while you still can? Is it about the exclusion of black Americans from white privilege? Or is it about an insidious welcome, a spurious inclusion, a learned pantomime of liberal friendliness, whose purpose is to disarm and defang grievance and relegitimise white class supremacy for the 21st century? Of course, it?s both. And Peele avails himself of the satirist?s prerogative: to be provocative, bold and even unfair; to stab at those well-meaning people whose anti-racism consists partly in a conviction that race prejudice is a thing of the past. Continue reading...